


Namaste, Bitches

by verhalen



Series: Northern Lights [19]
Category: Multi-Fandom, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, Worldweavers - Multiverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Aragorn Is So Done, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, One Shot, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 13:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen
Summary: Ari Einarsson drinks green tea, burns incense and scented candles, meditates and chants mantras, and it still isn't enough to deal with the ridiculousness playing out before him.Part of theNorthern Lights'verse, won't make sense if you haven't been readingChains of Eternity.





	Namaste, Bitches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/gifts).



**2005**  
 _Eureka, California_  
  
  
" _Om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ._ "  
  
Ari Einarsson had been at the ashram for six weeks now - a trip he'd been planning for over a year, saving as much money as he could every week, because if he didn't go, he would literally kill his parents, alcoholics who had been beating him and his cousins as long as he could remember.  
  
He had arrived broken; the first time he chanted this mantra he fell apart in his dorm later, crying for four hours, exhausting himself. The search for peace had meant going back to the memories that made him look for retreat in the first place, relived in nightmares, relived in the constant anxiety of being around other people, who seemed so well-adjusted and  _together_  compared to him.  
  
But six weeks later, the pain was less raw, and here was a deeper connection to the precognition, empathy, and mild healing abilities he'd had all his life.  
  
 _Some progress is better than no progress._  
  
After the communal vegetarian supper, Ari met with his yogi to discuss that progress. The trauma was safe to discuss - the psychic stuff was something with which to tread more carefully.  
  
And yet, when he was done with his observations, the yogi leaned back and gave him a look, like he was looking through him.  
  
"Ari," he said, "have you ever done a past life regression?"  
  
"Er... what?" Ari shook his head. "No, I have not."  
  
That was how Ari found himself in this room now, chanting the peace mantra as he underwent hypnosis, breathing in incense smoke.  _This is bullshit, this is ridiculous..._  
  
Suddenly, a flash across his mind's eye. Hunting with two identical twins, long dark hair, finishing each other's sentences. Treated like a brother, but was not.  
  
 _If you want to wed my daughter, you will unite the kingdoms._  
  
War. Clashing of swords. Terrible creatures.  
  
 _Elessar._  A crown placed upon his head.  
  
Ari gasped, flinching as if he'd been struck. As quickly as the flood of images came to him, it was gone.  
  
"What did you see?" the yogi asked.  
  
 _Do not tell this man anything,_  came a voice in the back of his mind, not his own. Ari swallowed hard. He had to make something up. "I was a Buddhist monk," he lied. "Being struck for my disobedience. Being cast out of the temple."  
  
"Good." The yogi nodded. "Now you understand. You have karmic debt. It's why your early life as it was. You were being punished... cleansed."  
  
"Was I." Ari set his jaw, fighting the urge to physically attack this man.  
  
"Indeed."  
  
Ari got up, keeping as calm as he could... deceptively so.  He was like a volcano on the inside. "Thank you for your help.  Namaste."  
  
He checked into a hotel room the next day, and was back on a plane to Iceland three days later.  "Namaste, bitches," he muttered under his breath as he watched the California coast shrink away.  
  
_  
  
 _Reykjavik, Iceland_  
  
  
As angry as Ari was with the yogi and his abuse apologetics -  _punishment for bad karma, being cleansed, my ARSE_  - he couldn't deny that doing the yoga positions, the mantras, the Reiki he was attuned to, still helped him, and he continued to take yoga classes in Reykjavik, from an instructor who wasn't like the one in California, though maybe it was because he had too many students and not enough time to get on his high horse.   
  
When he had enough money, he was going to open his own studio for New Age practices in Reykjavik, and teach "non-bullshit" yoga, an alternative to any instructors who might be out there telling their students they had "earned" or otherwise "deserved" their abuse in some way. He really wanted to make a difference in people's lives.  
  
It would also allow him to hide in plain sight, his gifts put to use as a Reiki practitioner, a healer, helping people without arousing suspicion.  
  
In the meantime... over the last few months he'd been having dreams building on the flash of images he'd had in the past life regression. He couldn't ignore it anymore.  
  
 _Elessar. What is that._  Ari looked it up on Google.  
  
He felt like an idiot when the results came back.  _Oh please, a fucking Tolkien character? Named Aragorn, when my name is_  Ari?  _Right._  He laughed out loud.  _That's ridiculous. That can't be real!_  
  
Nonetheless, he still felt compelled to explore this further. He took out all of Tolkien's books from the library, including the  _Silmarillion_. He read them over and over again. He finally got around to watching the Lord of the Rings movies, which he'd refused to see when they were new. He had been more of a Star Trek guy, not into "wizards and dragons and shit."  
  
It was him. It shouldn't have been possible, but...  
  
 _I can't tell anyone about this._  
  
And yet, even though he couldn't tell anyone about it, he needed to explore those dreams, those memories.  
  
It was time to write. His truth, disguised as fiction.  
  
  
_  
  
 **2009**  
  
Ari and his cousin Margrét were waiting at a bakery-and-coffeehouse in downtown Reykjavik; Margrét grinned and waved frantically like a big dork as her brother Sören walked in, at the side of a man with long dark hair who was almost a foot taller than him, and Sören was not short himself, being six feet barefoot.  
  
It was Sören's twenty-fifth birthday; he'd been dating this guy for a few months, they were living together, but it was Ari's first time meeting him because Ari was so busy with his yoga and meditation and Reiki classes. Ari got up to shake the man's hand. "Hello," he said in English. "It's nice to finally meet you... Sören's, uh... boyfriend." A nervous laugh. "I forgot your name."  
  
"Alejandro." Silver-grey eyes met his.  
  
 _No, it's not._  Ari wasn't going to say that out loud.  
  
Margrét had ordered a cake and pastries, that were brought over to the table. Ari tried not to stare at Sören's boyfriend - it wasn't just impolite, but he didn't want the man to know he'd figured something out. The word  _Grandfather_  flickered across Ari's consciousness, like a dim bulb. He wondered if this "Alejandro" character knew there was some kind of connection with him, but Ari's intuition told him no, that something had happened with the incarnation that it had masked him.  
  
 _As it did all of us._  As if he and his cousins weren't supposed to be found, weren't supposed to remember who they were. He didn't even know who his cousins were, from back then, it was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, he only knew they were  _old_ , older than he was...  
  
 _...and Gandalf sent me here to help. Somehow. Like he was trying to make up for whatever was_  done  _to them._  
  
That didn't make any goddamn sense.  
  
After they'd been there awhile, Sören kicked Ari under the table. "So what about you? Are you seeing anyone?"  
  
"Ha ha, no."  
  
"We could set you up on a date." Sören scratched his head. "Never did tell us what you are. Straight... gay...?"  
  
Ari shrugged.  _Waiting, because if I'm here, maybe she's here too, but I don't know if she'll be female, male... I have to keep that open. And unless it's her..._  He closed his eyes. "I don't know."  
  
Later on, back at his flat, with his Norwegian Forest Cat, Ragnar, purring away beside him, and the "Hounds of Love" album by Kate Bush playing, scented candles burning, a cup of green tea steaming, Ari went over his notes again, because that sudden ping of  _Grandfather_  was bothering him. Elessar - Aragorn - had been fostered by Elrond, and Elrond had been fostered by...  
  
 _...and he's a musician, and everything. Who is depressed, and likes to just randomly hang out at the sea.  
  
The fuck is this. I was really hoping I was just crazy, that this was some kind of delusion._ Ari facepalmed.  
  
"Waking the Witch" came on.   
  
He pulled out his Tarot deck, taking a few moments to ground and center, holding a quartz crystal in his hand. "What happens if I tell Sören right now?"  
  
Ten of Swords. Then the mental image of a bridge burning... an entire world up in flames.  
  
 _OK, bad idea. Do not tell Sören._  
  
That voice in the back of his head.  _You can't say anything until he's already figured it out. This journey has to be theirs. You cannot interfere._  
  
  
_  
  
  
 **July 2019**  
  
Ari had been in his family's chat server less and less often the last few weeks because it was getting  _painful_  to watch, how obvious this was, and these hopeless idiots couldn't see it.  
  
But here he was, on a random Saturday afternoon, because he had the day off, hanging out in the chat room like he was watching a natural disaster live on television. Sören had been renewing a friendship with "Alejandro", and things were looking up... now suddenly as of yesterday he was explosively angry with him again.  
  
There was not enough green tea, candles, incense, and chanting in the world for this hot mess.  
  
  
 **[12:32 PM] Sören:**  it gets frustrating sometimes because he has A Dark And Troubled Past and he, like, never talks about it  
  
 **[12:34 PM] Sören:**  there's been bits and pieces but not a complete picture  
  
 **[12:36 PM] Ari:**  But you do know some things.  
  
 **[12:35 PM] Sören:**  some  
  
 **[12:37 PM] Sören:**  like, for example, his brother Maitimo killed himself  
  
 **[12:40 PM] Ari:**  Oof, that's rough.  
  
 **[12:41 PM] Sören:**  yeah  
  
 **[12:47 PM] Ari:**  Also, were his parents Tolkien nerds?  
  
 **[12:50 PM] Sören:**

****

[Image: the "confused Nick Young" reaction meme.]

 

Ari leaned back on his couch and pinched the bridge of his nose.  _I can't interfere, this journey has to be theirs FINE OKAY but maybe I can throw breadcrumbs on the trail. This is just fucking RIDICULOUS now, ten years later._  
  
  
 **[12:52 PM] Ari:**  Right. So, Sören, what of Tolkien have you read, exactly?  
  
 **[12:53 PM] Sören:**  I read the LOTR trilogy when I was, like, in secondary school. don't remember all of it.  
  
 **[12:53 PM] Sören:**  and that's it  
  
 **[12:53 PM] Sören:**  I know there's more, like he wrote the Milli Vanilli or whatever, but I haven't read it  
  
 **[12:55 PM] Ari:**  ...  
  
 **[12:55 PM] Ari:**  ...  
  
 **[12:56 PM] Ari:**  the  _Milli Vanilli_  you did NOT just  
  
 **[12:57 PM] Sören:**  what  
  
 **[12:58 PM] Ari:**  it's  _the Silmarillion_  
  
 **[12:59 PM] Sören:**  oh OK  
  
 **[1:02 PM] Ari:**  ANYWAY  
  
 **[1:04 PM] Ari:**  Maitimo is the mother-name of Maedhros from the Silmarillion.  
  
 **[1:05 PM] Sören:**  :OK_hand:  
  
 **[1:06 PM] Sören:**  I was under the impression it was Spanish or Portuguese considering it's Alejandro's brother and all  
  
 **[1:07 PM] Qui-Gon:**  NO LOL I CAN DEFINITELY CONFIRM THAT'S NOT A SPANISH OR PORTUGUESE NAME  
  
 **[1:08 PM] Sören:**  huh  
  
 **[1:09 PM] Ari:**  You should read the Silm sometime. It's really interesting. Super interesting.  
  
 **[1:10 PM] Sören:**  all right  
  
 **[1:11 PM] Sören:**  I need something to do, so I think I'll go to the library and check it out.  
  
 **[1:12 PM] Ari:**  cool beans :D  
  
  
 _You fucking dork._  
  
Ari sighed, and facepalmed. If he played a drinking game for how many times all of this made him facepalm, he would have no liver.  
  
 _Will reading that even help at this point? I'm starting to think there's no help for this situation._  
  
His Tarot deck caught his eye.  _Sure, let's do this for shits and giggles._  Ari used the Force to draw a card out of the deck, without touching it. His ability to move objects with his mind was not as strong as his cousins, but he could do it once in awhile, though it usually gave him a headache or made him tired later.  
  
The Lovers card hovered in the air. Another pull. The Star.  
  
He smiled. That was worth the headache.


End file.
